Thursday, July 15, 2010

When we were in Austin, TX two years ago we went out for barbecue everyday & every barbecue included smoked sausage. Matt became a big fan of it. So, when we decide to host our own Smokapalooza last weekend he said he was going to make smoked sausage. Thursday, he turned 6 pounds of pork shoulder into 10 feet on Polish Sausage.He used the same Polish sausage recipe from our Oink! post because it was just so good with all the garlic & caraway seeds. On smoking day, the sausage went on the top rack of the smoker (the pulled pork was on the lower rack).The sausage takes about 2 - 3 hours to smoke & cook through. about halfway through cooking we rewrapped the sausage so the middle was on the outside & vice versa because we the outside was getting cooked more that the rest. We found with this much sausage it was hard for the smoke to get to all of the sausage evenly. Next time we'll either do less or hang the sausage (which we could do if there was nothing on the lower rack).The sausage had a beautiful smoke ring on the inside. The smoky flavor worked perfectly we the seasonings in the sausage. We served in with barbecue sauce & mustard. (In Austin they would offer to dip your sausage in sauce for you before serving.) It certainly made for a nice something different then what you usually get at a barbecue up here in the north. The leftovers made for some great gumbo which I'll share with you next week.

A few notes:1. If you don't want to make sausage you could easily do this with store bought.2. We are heat smoking here, our smoker is about 225 - 250 F so, it is safely cooking the fresh sausage. Sausage that is going to be cold smoked should be cured first.3. You don't have to spend a lot to get a decent little smoker. Our's is the Brinkmann Smoke-N-Grill Charcoal Smoker and Grill. We paid about $40 for it at Home Depot & have been thrilled by the results we get with it.4. If you don't have a smoker you can get a smoker box at the hardware store to use on your grill. You don't get as strong a smoky flavor though.

7 comments:

This is a marvelous sight to behold on this lovely, sunny, perfect-day-to-be-outdoors morning! After reading about your smokapalooza, I need to get one of these ($40 is a deal). I can imagine noshing on these with some of your garlic scape mustard . . . Mmmmmm!